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Video footage published of Breivik parking his van bomb

RNW archive

This article is part of the RNW archive. RNW is the former Radio Netherlands Worldwide or Wereldomroep, which was founded as the Dutch international public broadcaster in 1947. In 2011, the Dutch government decided to cut funding and shift RNW from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science to the ministry of Foreign Affairs. More information about RNW Media’s current activities can be found at https://www.rnw.org/about-rnw-media.

Norway's public broadcaster NRK on Monday published for the first time video footage of right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik parking his van bomb that killed eight people in Oslo in July 2011.

Captured by video surveillance cameras, the images show Breivik parking his white van on July 22 at the very foot of a building tower that housed the prime minister's offices.

Breivik is seen getting out of the car in a security guard's uniform, and walking away briskly.

The prime minister was not in the building at the time, though eight other people were killed and several dozen were injured.

Breivik can also be seen leaving in a second vehicle, a grey Fiat van, which he used to drive to the nearby island of Utoeya where he gunned down 69 people, mostly teens, attending a Labour Party youth camp.

The security guard on duty that day had followed the scene on his monitor and said he thought the driver of the white van was a watchman.

"It's generally the prime minister and the bodyguards who park outside but some motorists also come and park without permission every day and we have to chase them away," he says in the video.

He adds that he began the process to have the van moved by calling up the vehicule registry to learn the driver's name.

"I picked up the telephone and..." he added, without finishing the sentence.

Norwegian officials have received much flack for not having closed the street alongside the government building, despite a decision to do so in 2004. The oversight has been attributed to bureaucratic delays.

Photographs of Breivik parking the van had previously been released and video footage was shown during his trial earlier this year, but this was the first time the video footage was released publicly.

It is part of a documentary that NRK will air on Tuesday evening.

On August 24, Breivik was found sane and sentenced to Norway's maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, a sentence that can be extended indefinitely if he is deemed a continued threat to society.

Breivik confessed to the attacks, calling them "cruel but necessary" to protect his country from the multiculturalism his victims embraced and which he hates.